


Day 279

by Josh_the_Bard



Series: A Year in Kirkwall [279]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26869909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josh_the_Bard/pseuds/Josh_the_Bard
Series: A Year in Kirkwall [279]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589257
Kudos: 1





	Day 279

Gomes was tentatively optimistic about his latest job. On one hand, it was a perfect opportunity to showcase his stair-climbing wheelbarrow, on the other hand, the job itself was in the templar barracks. He didn’t like the idea of spending the next few weeks surrounded by mages and templars, who had become increasingly jumpy in recent years. They were meant to be building an extension onto the current barracks so they could cram more templars into the Gallows. As if the city didn’t have enough already.

In other circles the mages might have been called on to help lift the building supplies up the staircases but not, it seemed, in Kirkwall. Gomes stepped off the boat and looked around the Gallows. He had never been here before, and no description he had ever heard had prepared him for the sights. Giant bronze status of slaves towered over him everywhere he looked. They were all expressing pain and misery.

“I’ve heard people say the templars take their jobs as prison guards seriously but this is something else,” he muttered. The man next to him chuckled.

“The templars didn’t make these statues,” he said. “The mages did. Back in the days of the Imperium. These statues were meant to make people like us feel powerless. Now they serve as a warning as to what happens if the robes take over again.” The man dumped his load of bricks into Gomes’s wheelbarrow and went back to unloading the boat.

“Right,” Gomes said. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. He knew he didn’t really know what life was like in the old Imperium, or the now one for that matter, but he had to wonder if he would have been that much worse off back then.

Once his wheelbarrow was filled he took the bricks to the barracks. They wouldn’t need them today but it would have been a waste of a trip if they didn’t bring some materials. Today, they were taking down one of the walls. The other side was a garden that would be reduced to accommodate the extra beds. It would have been fun to knock down the wall with giant hammers but the boss wanted to save money by reusing the bricks that were there already. Sensible, but it would mean a day of careful chiseling. Gomes tried not to contemplate the implication that the combined wage of the team was less than the value of a few bricks.

Towards the end of the day, a high ranking templar came by to inspect their progress. They had some recruits watching them throughout the day but the newcomer dismissed them now so he was the only guard left. The templar was old, for a templar anyway. Most templars Gomes had met were either young or mad so Gomes assumed the man was someone important. He had bright red hair with just a bit of grey at the temples and in his beard.

The templar took the foreman aside for a moment. They tried to have a hushed conversation but Gomes was pretty sure the foreman had never once whispered in his life and Gomes could make out half the conversation.

“What’s with all the secrecy Sir. … I don’t like this, the rumors' I've heard about the Knight Commander’s wrath … I can’t keep this a secret from my men …. I don’t want any of this coming down on my head.”

The templar made a hurried return to his post and the work continued as normal. Gomes minded his own business until he was alone with the formen on the boat back from the Gallows.

“I heard you talking to the templar,” Gomes whispered. “What’s going on?”

“You can’t tell anyone,” said the foreman. “Sir. Thrask just wants us to make a tiny modification to the design. A way to bass things from the barracks to the garden.”

“If the templars find out-”

“If they find out I’ll take the fall,” the foreman said. “But if they don’t there’s a sovereign for each of us.”

The foreman moved to the other side of the boat after that. His way of saying the conversation was over. Gomes had quite a bit to think about. There wasn’t a single member of the team who couldn’t use the extra money, especially considering what they were being paid for this job. But he had no desire to be on the wrong side of the templars. 

There was a very full silence on the boat for the rest of the trip.


End file.
